Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

I assume at some point in history, people actually liked Necco wafers?

They were an important source of tooth decay for the Irish immigrants and a staple of granny candy dishes for generations.

Fuck if I know what the last 25 years of usage was.

Necco had a plant just north of Milwaukee for years. They produced a product called "candy raisins" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Raisins) and when they shut the plant down in 2008 - people were seriously pissed that they could no longer buy the product. It has since been brought back - much to the enjoyment of older folks!